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Off-Topic Does God actually exist?

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RealRussellPumps said:
I'm a believer in a higher power. I don't buy into the notion that there is an all powerful man in the sky that "has a plan" that involves children being murdered, terrorist attacks, etc...
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I would agree. But these things still happen. So if this higher power created us and the world we are in do you think he cares what happens in it? Or is he powerless to do anything about it?
 
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Salt said:
I would agree. But these things still happen. So if this higher power created us and the world we are in do you think he cares what happens in it? Or is he powerless to do anything about it?
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Cares? Absolutely. Completely. He doesn’t want a single person lost.

His actions I think are balanced against the free will that He gave us.
 
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Salt said:
I would agree. But these things still happen. So if this higher power created us and the world we are in do you think he cares what happens in it? Or is he powerless to do anything about it?
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I guess I don't really think it was necessarily a being or something like that that created us. By higher power, I mean like I think we are apart of something larger. When we all die our energy just releases back into the cosmos type of thing.
 
RealRussellPumps said:
I guess I don't really think it was necessarily a being or something like that that created us. By higher power, I mean like I think we are apart of something larger. When we all die our energy just releases back into the cosmos type of thing.
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Do you think it’s conscious? One thing I always wondered was how our consciousness came about. It always made sense that our consciousness is different than the energy that makes up matter.
 
Salt said:
Do you think it’s conscious? One thing I always wondered was how our consciousness came about. It always made sense that our consciousness is different than the energy that makes up matter.
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I don't think consciousness exists without a vehicle. In our case, our energy is made conscious through our bodies/brains. In the form of energy, I don't believe there is any concsciousness.
 
RealRussellPumps said:
I don't think consciousness exists without a vehicle. In our case, our energy is made conscious through our bodies/brains. In the form of energy, I don't believe there is any concsciousness.
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I think in our case that’s correct. Our bodies are the vehicle for consciousness to operate. But the thing is that if consciousness is an emergent property of matter and energy do we have any real free will?

Ultimately aren’t our thoughts and subsequent actions determined by physical laws and any notion that we decide anything just an illusion?

So there are two views. One is that consciousness is top down which sees mind before matter and best explains our own experience, or that consciousness is bottom up so we have energy and matter and mind later emerges from some interaction of these physical forces.
 
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Salt said:
I think in our case that’s correct. Our bodies are the vehicle for consciousness to operate. But the thing is that if consciousness is an emergent property of matter and energy do we have any real free will?

Ultimately aren’t our thoughts and subsequent actions determined by physical laws and any notion that we decide anything just an illusion?

So there are two views. One is that consciousness is top down which sees mind before matter and best explains our own experience, or that consciousness is bottom up so we have energy and matter and mind later emerges from some interaction of these physical forces.
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And then you have to ask yourself as well about everything else that is on our planet that is considered living and then question consciousness on that level as well. Are trees, which are living, conscious? Other plants? Singular cells are thought to be autonomous and sentient so is our consciousness just the same principal of the universe being a collection of conscious energy just on a significantly smaller scale?
 
RealRussellPumps said:
And then you have to ask yourself as well about everything else that is on our planet that is considered living and then question consciousness on that level as well. Are trees, which are living, conscious? Other plants? Singular cells are thought to be autonomous and sentient so is our consciousness just the same principal of the universe being a collection of conscious energy just on a significantly smaller scale?
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There are different degrees of consciousness. At our level it seems we are at something like meta consciousness where we can think about our thinking and also affect energy and matter by our thoughts and actions. Biofeedback is a good example of this.

We can influence our autonomic nervous system functioning one we become aware of that we are affecting. We operate as if our mind is top down vs just an emergent property of matter.
 
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Definitely not hating. Id vote for him for the right amount of money. Inflation got us all ***ced up:)
 
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